At Last
by thisisforyou
Summary: It was playing when he walked into the diner, the first time he met Frank. Ironic, really, though he didn't realise until later. Songfic.


**A/N: The song is called **_**At Last**_**, and was adapted into this form for the film **_**Orchestra Wives**_**, which I have neither seen nor had heard of until we learnt the song for choir. We learnt the song on Monday and by Thursday I was casually being freaked out by the totally AMAZING Keith Carradeine (Frank) and I realized that the song, although a slightly different form of it, was playing in the background. My English teacher taught me to pay attention to things like that – because nothing in film/TV is done by accident – so I thought about it and realized the irony. Especially now. It was also played at the wedding in **_**(500) Days of Summer**_** which I went to see because of dear Matthew Gray Gubler, our very own Spencer Reid, who delivered a stunning performance as Paul: **_**"Robyn's better than my dream girl. She's real."**_

**So, anywho, I was watching Dexter the other night for the first time ever (and by 'the other night' I mean a few weeks ago) and someone said "Frank?"and it cut to a shot of… Keith Carradeine! I actually nearly had a heart attack and it all came rushing back! I've been having nightmares about him ever since. This is my way of trying to stop him repetitively shooting me and chasing me around his house and so on and so forth. So, enjoy. Oh, and because of the aforementioned time lag, any quotes I use will not be perfect, so please don't criticize that, although any other type of constructive criticism is desperately sought-after.**

**-for you!**

* * *

Jason Gideon had entered the diner with the clarity of anticipation needling his stomach.

"Where have you been my whole life, sweetheart?"

Maybe the waitress's crude sense of humor was the reason that song came on as soon as he waked through the door.

_I was never spellbound  
By a starry sky_

Maybe it was the God he'd never really believed in playing mind games with him. Some cosmic trick of fate that had led him away from everything he lived for.

_What is there to moonglow  
When love has passed you by?_

His job had become everything to him; not because he, like so many others, immersed himself in paperwork to avoid a bad situation at home, but because he quite simply loved what he did. Catching criminals, saving lives; it had become everything to him.

Until Frank.

_Then there came a midnight  
And the world was new  
Now here am I  
So spellbound, darling  
Not by stars  
But just by you_

Frank was the epitome of his craft, the textbook psychopath, the perfect criminal, what got him out of bed in the morning and, indeed, into it at night. Frank was the first to say it, but he'd been right, really. It wasn't the hundreds of innocents he'd saved that kept Gideon coming back for more. It was the chase, the mind games, the puzzles, the thrilling moments like the conversation in the diner. Frank had changed everything, had turned everything he knew upside down; as the strawberry milkshake had slipped intoxicatingly slowly down the glass like sand in an egg-timer it had been the criminal that held all the cards and the federal agent who was desperately keeping a brave face while panic roiled around inside him.

For years, Gideon had wondered where the thin line between horror and fascination lay. At that moment, sitting at that table with that psychopath, he had realized that it didn't exist at all. What horrified him, like Frank's chillingly calm disposition, fascinated him; he prolonged the time they spent together, the time before, he had believed, Frank would be locked away behind a door nobody ever opened, gone forever.

_At last  
My love has come along  
My lonely days are over  
And life is like a song_

While residue of thick, false flavor lingered in the glass, while the sexual sadist's thin lips played teasingly with the straw, Gideon had felt intoxicatingly, blindingly alive. For the first time in months, alive with the thrill of having a cool, collected murderer within the touch of his fingertips.

_At last  
The skies above are blue  
My heart was wrapped in clover  
The night I looked at you_

Morgan, standing beside the table, fidgeting anxiously, didn't share his boss's spellbound manner. To him, the calm man with greying hair swept neatly back from his forehead was just another serial killer. Just another psychopath, another cause of death for countless victims in the middle of nowhere. They were just M.O.s and profiles to Morgan, every one the same.

Not Frank. Gideon had seen the bodies, photo upon photo upon photo. He knew how long the killer had been out there: the world's most prolific serial murderer. That the climax of such a tangled chase should peak _here_, was almost too much to bear; as he looked outside at the SWAT team behind the glass he almost felt like a teenager again, as though the older man opposite him were a forbidden lover. The comparison had struck him more than once throughout the exchange, filling Gideon's stomach with some hot, sick feeling, though whether it was revulsion or excitement, he hardly knew.

_I found a dream that I can speak to  
A dream that I can call my own  
I found a thrill to press my cheek to  
A thrill I've never known_

He wasn't to know, in the bubble of silence broken only by the song playing from a grainy speaker and the psychopath's mesmerizing voice, that the man opposite him would mean the end of the only thing he lived for. He didn't know that the man would take his own life and leave Gideon's to fall apart. How could he? All he could know was Frank, coyly playing with time, the time measured painstakingly by the strawberry milkshake in the slippery glass, cold condensation falling down the outside as though it, too, was frozen by the man in whose hands it lay.

He didn't realize properly until the final train had gone past that deep down, underneath the chilling exterior, Frank was just a sick man. Sick of mind, heart and soul, in desperate need of correction, crying out for help.

_You smiled  
And then the spell was cast  
And here we are, in Heaven  
For you are mine, mine at last!_

When the time was up and the sickly strawberry gone, and the SWATS disappeared in one direction while Frank and his new victim took the other, right in front of Gideon's imploring eyes, he began to have an inkling of what the song had meant.

Now, in the tiny, faraway cottage with the light fading around him, it was clearer than ever. Frank was not his, not then, not even now while his cold and lifeless body was pieced together in some morgue. Even now, _especially_ now, when the thing he loved most in all the world held no joy, when all his loves felt cold and tremulous, he knew that it was _him_ that belonged to _Frank_. And even in death, the psychopath called to him, controlling his every move.

Hesitantly, reluctantly, as though fighting some inner part of himself, Gideon lowered pen to paper and began to write.

_Dear Spencer,  
I know you'll be the one to find this and I wish I could explain it in a way you'll understand…_

When he was finished, the warm metal that had once meant everything to him lingered in his fingers as though imploring him not to let it go, begging him to forget the sexual sadist holding him in a grip of iced iron.

But he couldn't forget Frank. Jason Gideon laid down the badge, stood quickly and left the house, the last few lines of the song still ringing in his mind:

_And here we are, in Heaven,  
For you are mine, mine at last!_

* * *

**A/N: The idea that Gideon was in some way sexually attracted to Frank wouldn't get out of my mind even though I didn't want to put it in the surface of the story, so I do apologise if you got that vibe too strongly; I was trying to play with it subtly without actually saying it. Oh, well. Reviews not only welcome but absolutely expected. If you liked this, you might like my chapter fic, **_**Draw Me A Star**_**, which is currently in its eleventh published chapter and being updated faster than you can find elegant words to tell me I'm updating fast.**

**-for you!**


End file.
